My Hunger, My Starvation :: My Shame, My Salvation

My hunger was long dead. I remember. It was prolonged and deliberate. Died when I was a single digit. I killed it with my mother's hatred and father's anger. It took its time to depart, and I made sure it was silent. It whinged a little during the nights under the low lights. I remember how the hunger fought back, clawing and howling, begging to be fed. It had small, short-lived moments of victory. 

As I grew, the starvation anchored me. The emptiness kept me up. And with it, I killed my appetite. I thought that was victory. I received compliments too! The absence of hunger and indifference towards consumption felt like control, like I’d finally tamed the wild beast inside me. But now, when I eat—when I let the smallest morsel pass my lips—it’s not hunger that returns. It’s something worse. 

It’s shame.

I went out to eat today. The emptiness inside me opens like a vortex, and the food tumbles into it, disappearing before I even realise what I’m doing. There’s no pleasure, no satisfaction—just the raw act of filling a void that never truly fills. And after I finished, I could not help but notice how beastly it was. Reflected in the knife’s edge or the gloss of a spoon. My gut, crouching behind my ribs, its jaws smeared with shame. I looked around, and it’s like suddenly a different world, one where I’m an outsider. I am sat at the table, the empty plate in front of me a gaping wound. 

The act of eating. Mechanical and humiliating. Like I unlearned how to eat when I killed hunger.

I killed my hunger, but I didn’t bury it. I starved my appetite, but I didn’t forget how to consume. Now I devour like an animal, and when I’m done, all that remains is the shame. It seeps into my skin, into my breath, into the very air around me.

Maybe now, all that’s left is the hunger and the shame. And me, somewhere in between. Or, right in the core of the vortex.

I starve because I think it will save me. I eat because I’m still human. But when I do, I remember why I stopped. I don’t know how to stop this cycle. I starve. I eat. I am ashamed. I starve again.

- Oizys.

Nothing Changes... Ever

I am still me. I am still scared. Still anxious. Hesitant. Shrinkingly worried. Rattled by everything, even the sound of my own typing. Everything just ruffling my feathers. Trying to get under my skin. Do we ever change? Does anything ever change like it does in television? How that one tired crone sips some luxurious tea and becomes the picture of health, epitome of beauty. I am still constrained by my own crippling fear of what will happen tomorrow morning. It keeps me physically captured. I cannot seem to shake it off and stop over-apprehending it. Maybe, when I seek change, I hope it to happen on molecular levels. Changes not only big, but changes that are so small that they slip past our conscious mind, forging themselves into the glass sheet between who I am and who I could be. And, when I don't have that, I feel the same. Remain the same. Rot the same. Cry the same. Live the same. And, that is probably my worst fear. Not failing in an exam, not unable to find a job, not not being able to quit a toxic job. But, not being able to change my construct. It is the same bricks and I keep building the same house. The doors keep slamming. And, the windows never open. Nor, they close properly. And, no one comes and rings the bell. No one comes looking for me. The world outside moves on, indifferent to the house I keep rebuilding. I wonder if it knows I’m here, or if I’ve become invisible, hidden behind these walls of my own making. The rooms are always so quiet and the walls are always stickily closing in. The emptiness is heavy and all the boxes feel hollow—reminding me of all the words I never said, all the doors I never dared to walk through. It’s not that I don’t want someone to come. It’s that I don’t know how to let them in without showing them the cracks, the places where the foundation buckles under its own weight. It's not that I don't want someone to help me. It's that what if the rubble reveals nothing worth saving, what if they tear it all down and find there’s no blueprint for something better? So, I keep playing with the same bricks. I sleep the same lie. I wake up to the same lie. I know the truth: it’s not the house that traps me. It’s the fear of stepping outside. Fear of being homesick or... not being homesick. Fear of unlearning myself. Fear of altering my code. Of leaving these bricks behind and learning how to stand under the open sky: unshielded, vulnerable, alive.

- Oizys.

P.S.: I don't know if I am making sense. I actually cannot sleep because I am dreading every single day of this notice period, and I do not want to wake up tomorrow morning to log in again. And I wish I had someone to crib about this with, but since I pushed basically every single person away, far away, with all these stubborn bricks, this corner of the web is the only place I have. 

I Resigned

I resigned yesterday. It was surreal and quick. I still cannot believe it. My body seemed to not be able to handle it, and I could feel red, hot, gaseous bile rising that kept me up and walking almost the entire night. Yesterday morning was colossally bad, and I could not seem to wait for the written offer for this new job, and everything was getting too scratchy with my skin and patience. And it just happened. All of a sudden. I got it, and I sent that heavily marinated letter of resignation. Then the barrage of messages and calls hit me. I just took them, answering with first thoughts with my mind. Did not think at all. No second thoughts injected by others' manipulation. I stood still. I have to. All of last year, I resigned every day from the joys of life (I cannot believe I am using phrases like 'joys of life,' though...), cribbed every single minute, and cried my eyes out thanking I have a remote job so my co-workers cannot see me cry. And, I cannot believe I was the one who decided to put an end to it yesterday. I felt capability seeping into my veins, invading with fear and cowardice. A pool of brave tremor? Courageous hesitation? When you live life starved of purpose and lack of prosper, any fresh air of change will send a chill down your spine. Trigger your gut. Open up your untapped marrow of life to possible infections too. The following hours felt blurrily bizarre. Like, I could almost hear the sound of my own pulse thumping in my throat, a constant reminder that this was real. I thought about how little of it made sense—how everything had felt like a long, drawn-out mistake that I had grown used to. Yet, here I was, making the decision that would set it all in motion. I had always pictured this moment, decided how it would feel, the exact words I would say, but reality never really follows the script you write. There’s no cinematic relief, no big dramatic pause where everything falls into place. It’s just... quiet. And in that quiet, I could feel something inside me starting to shift. It’s not peace, exactly, but a heavy silence. The kind that comes right before something profound changes. I thought I would feel stronger, like a person who finally figured it out. Instead, I felt small. A bundle of fear wrapped up in impatience, waiting to see what this “bravery” would lead to. Would it unravel me? Would I be someone completely different when it was all over? Or would I be just a mess, wandering in a new direction? Still, there’s a strange comfort in the mess. A feeling of being exposed, raw, vulnerable even, but alive in a way I hadn’t felt in months. I guess this is what they don’t tell you about breaking away from something that’s been draining the life out of you. You’re not met with instant relief but with a stark awareness of how long you’ve been in that space. It’s like stepping into daylight after a long, endless night—your eyes struggle to adjust, but you know it’s a good thing. So, I sit here now, waiting for the next wave to come, not knowing what will happen next, but understanding that I had to be the one to pull myself out. Even if it means stumbling, even if it means falling. At least I know I’m falling forward.

Through the trees, a glimmer of orange light—like the first spark of change. Resigning was my sunrise. New beginnings of embracing change.

- Oizys.